1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a test method, a test program, and a test device of a data processing system which is formed as a symmetric multiprocessor which logically equivalently accesses shared devices such as memories by a plurality of processors, and particularly relates to a test method, a test program, and a test device of a data processing system which determines a combination of a test program and a load program having a high load effect and performs a long-time load test in order to examine the operation of connection mechanisms.
2. Description of the Related Arts
Conventionally, in a data processing system known as a symmetric multiprocessor, a plurality of processors on which cache devices are mounted are mutually connected by one or plural connection mechanisms, and access can be made logically and symmetrically between memory devices disposed as shared devices and the cache devices provided in the processors via the connection mechanisms. In such a data processing system, a plurality of reference operations of data and data write operations from certain processors to memory devices, operations of referencing the data which is present in the cache devices of other processors, etc. may occur simultaneously. In this case, if operation requests from the processors are generated more than the simultaneous processing capability that the connection mechanisms have, the operation requests are temporarily caused to be in an execution waiting state and sequentially processed. A long-time load test is performed for such a data processing system in order to examine the operation of the connection mechanisms in accordance with needs for example when building the system. The load test for the connection mechanism for operation examination is executed by combining a test program which confirms validity of the data referenced by processors and a load program which outputs operation requests which are more than the simultaneous processing capability to the connection mechanisms along with execution of the test program to generate a loaded state. Therefore, the test program which examines the data referencing and write operations is designed in accordance with the logic specification of the processors, the load program is designed in accordance with the hardware implementation specification of the connection mechanisms, and a combination of the load program and the test program which is expected to have a load effect is determined based on intuition and experiences upon designing, so as to execute the load test.
However, since the combination of the test program and the load program has been determined based on intuition and experiences upon designing in such a conventional test method of a data processing system, the determined combination has not been ensured to be the best combination for the operation examination of the connection mechanism, and there has been a possibility that sufficient reliability may not be obtained for the operation examination of the connection mechanisms.